This page was last updated on January 17, 2012.
Occupy: Resurrecting Rev. King’s Final Dream; Leo W. Gerard – USW CEO; Progressive Democrats of America – PA 4th CD Chapter; January 16, 2012.
Carl Davidson posted this under the title “Honor the Message, Honor the Man.”
You can learn more about BCR’s leftster management here.
Since Mr. Gerard is not a U.S. citizen (He’s a Canadian.), why should any of us care about his position on U.S. issues? Here’s why. Mr. Gerard is a foreign national running a political-advocacy business with over 600,000 members, 2010 revenue of $277 million, and that spent over $6 million in 2010 on “Political Activities and Lobbying.” The citizenship issue is not important because of what Mr. Gerard preaches; it’s important because of his position and the power of that position to affect local, state, and federal policies. You can find more about this at the bottom of a previous critique. It’s also necessary to note truth in advertising would require USW management to change its business’ name. According to “Steelworkers a minority within their own union,” as of 2005 less than one-third (about 180,000 out of about 600,000) of USW “members [are] employed in the primary and fabricated metals industries.”
The most recent Gerard piece I critiqued was “Tale of Two Cities: GOP Tries to Convert America’s ‘Bedford Falls’ Into ‘Pottersville’” Previous critiques are here and here.
Though lefties like to wrap themselves and their actions around Mr. King at every opportunity, they go above and beyond on his holiday. This time, Mr. Gerard appears to equate Mr. King and today’s “Occupiers.” If you choose to read Mr. Gerard’s piece, be sure to fact-check just as you should with anything else you read, including my stuff.
Rather than critique this piece, I direct you to a few papers I wrote regarding the left and civil rights. Please read “Lefty race baiters,” “Democrats – The party of civil rights – not,” and “Republicans – Civil Rights.”
Another piece worth reading is “Why Martin Luther King Was Republican” by Frances Rice, chairman of the National Black Republican Association (NBRA). I didn’t fact-check the piece so you’ll need to do your own. Mr. King’s niece, Alveda King, also claims he was a Republican though some historians and other relatives claim otherwise. Personally, I don’t care if Mr. King was a Democrat (more likely), Republican, or Whig. Regardless of his party registration, Mr. King appeared to support policies/programs of the left, other than his opposition to government-sponsored discrimination. It’s a shame Mr. King mistakenly thought his real enemies were friends.
OK, I said no critique but there are some points too egregious to ignore.
Mr. Gerard wrote, “the Occupiers are pressing for a cause — economic justice — … And they’re pursuing it with the technique he [MLK] advocated – nonviolent protest.” Is Mr. Gerard kidding, or is “nonviolent protest” leftyspeak for rioting, similar to “spending cut” really meaning tax increase? The lefty response will be to claim the police started the riots.
Mr. Gerard referred to FDR as “The president who had pulled the country out of the Great Depression.” Mr. Gerard knows FDR didn’t pull “the country out of the Great Depression.” Consider the following quote: “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot.” - Henry Morgenthau, FDR’s Treasury Secretary during the Great Depression, testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee in May 1939. At the time World War II began, FDR had been in office for nine years and the U.S. was still solidly in the Depression. As a reminder, the unemployment rate was still a very high 14.6% in 1940 (down from 24.9% in 1933) and didn’t get below 10% until 1941 (9.9%). WWII and post-war foreign reconstruction demand ended the Depression, not FDR. In fact, it’s clear some of FDR’s progressive policies actually held back recovery.
Mr. Gerard tells us FDR “warned: ‘People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.’” This is true, but what is the difference between a dictatorship and the leftist vision that has all of us dependent on government for everything?
Mr. Gerard wrote, “What Rev. King preached and what many Occupiers seem to believe is that paramount in a republic is job creation, not wealth creation. The duty of government is not to ensure that the rich get richer but to establish equal opportunity for individuals to achieve freedom, independence and happiness. Without a job — without adequate income — freedom, independence and happiness are impossible.” “Paramount in a republic is job creation, not wealth creation?” And here I thought ensuring individual liberty was “Paramount in a republic.” Silly me.
As for “equal opportunity for individuals to achieve freedom, independence and happiness,” are we to forget leftism cuts freedom and independence by increasing government power at the expense of individual liberty? (Side note: This is the real reason for the Second Amendment, not hunting.) Keep in mind, though, lefties seem to have a different view of freedom than most of us. For example, a local lefty supporting a government-run, taxpayer-funded healthcare monopoly wrote, “Far from limiting your freedom, it would free you from any worry about healthcare bills.” That having a healthcare insurer forced on us actually frees us reminded me of the following quote from Henry Ford’s autobiography in reference to the Model T: “Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.” Using that “logic,” incarcerated criminals are freer than the rest of us because they are “free … from any worry about healthcare bills,” clothing bills, food bills, housing bills, et cetera.
In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity. <g>
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